30 March 2009

Could it be the career diplomat and Brookings vice president named Carlos Pascual? Who happens to be a Cuban American? And an expert on "post-conflict stabilization," or those things sometimes called "failed states"?

As far as I can tell, Ana Maria Salazar was the first to go with the speculation, followed by Proceso and El Universal. The buzz came up during Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to Mexico last week. There is little online about Pascual, but he did co-author a paper for Foreign Affairs on "Addressing State Failure."

That can't be a welcome bit of trivia for Mexico's elites, who are known to transmit symbolic meaning into who the powerhouse to the north sends as its emissary. With so much criticism and negative press of Mexico swirling in the United States right now, Mexicans will be particularly sensitive to this topic.

President Barack Obama is expected to announce the ambassador appointment -- whether it's Carlos Pascual or someone else -- when he visits Mexico in mid-April.

28 March 2009

In simplest terms, Satélite and Coapa are to Mexico City what Jersey and Long Island are to New York, or the Valley and Orange County are to L.A. Huge and often mocked suburban grids that press in on the city, where people are defined by their cars, consumer products, and curious values.

27 March 2009

On a Saturday night bus ride from Mazatlan to Mexico City, the rudo AAA luchador Abismo Negro suffered some sort of anxiety attack on the road in Sinaloa and asked the driver to pull over. He then texted his wife to say that he was in a panic, lost in some hills. A search was launched. By Sunday, Abismo Negro was dead, found drowned in a muddy river. The wrestler's real name was Andrés Palomeque González. Reports on his age varied between 35 and 37.

Some wrestling media has reported that steroids may have triggered the attack. A wake for Palomeque was held in Mazatlan, with La Prensa reporting on the wrestlers who showed up to pay their respects: "Crazzy Boys, El Elegido, Dark Escoria, Kenzo Susuki, Nicho, El
Millonario, Mini Charli Manzon, Rocky Romero, El Elegido, Lola
González, and Martha Villalobos, among others."

Palomeque's body was taken to his native Villahermosa, Tabasco, for burial.

26 March 2009

Mexico's original and most legendary boxing hero, Raúl "Ratón" Macías, passed away this week. Michael Rosenthal writes at The Ring:

To understand the impact Raul "Raton" Macias had on the Mexican people,
think Ruben Olivares and then Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. after him. Only
Macias, who died of cancer at 74 on Monday, was the first. "He was the first real Mexican boxing idol," said longtime boxing
writer and publicist Ricardo Jimenez. "When he fought, everything in
Mexico stopped. Still, even today, he's probably one of the greatest
idols in Mexico."

Macias, raised in one of Mexico City's toughest neighborhoods, wasn't
the brawler that Mexican and Mexican-American fans typically embrace.
He was a boxer-puncher, a thinking man's fighter who could win in many
ways. However, his combination of success in the ring (41-2, 25 knockouts),
movie-star looks that would later lead him into acting and his
man-of-the-people charm made him a favorite of even non-Mexicans in
1950s.

He filled arenas both in Mexico and in the United States, exclusively
in California and Texas, states with many fans of Mexican descent. His
fight against Nate Brooks in 1952 drew more than 50,000 to the main
bullring in Mexico City.

He was also known for his signature victory line: "I owe everything to my manager and to the Virgencita de Guadalupe." Hundreds attended a Mass for Macías on Tuesday at the Basilica. La Prensa has more coverage here, here, and here.

25 March 2009

Mexico City -- the second or third largest in the world, the eighth wealthiest, the mighty megalopolis -- is running out of water. No news in saying so, but right now the situation appears critical. Reserves of the city's largely imported water supplies from the Cutzamala plant are at their lowest in years. Hoping to prevent a larger disaster, for three days a month, the municipal water utility has decided to run the city's supply at 50% its normal flow. March 14 was the first time this measure was taken -- and from what I'm seeing and hearing, the water hasn't been back on yet.

That's 12 days of sporadic, low-pressure water at the tap for who knows how many millions of people. And no water -- none -- for perhaps millions more. That means dead toilets, no showers, panting plants. Some boroughs and specific neighborhoods have not been affected much (you can guess which), and others have been so severely (guess which again). All the info is there in the SACM news section. The Mija Chronicles is blogging it: "The honeymoon is over."

The city still has pipas, or trucks that distribute potable water, and the bottled, treated stuff, which is all we drink anyway. And the problem will never be as sexy as bloodshed and beheadings. But watch this video at El Universal. The reporter says that city and federal authorities have dire forecasts for Mexico City's water this year. "Drastic steps" may be in order, such as shutting off water entirely on the weekends.

24 March 2009

Is the U.S. media being "sensationalist" in its coverage of the narco war in Mexico? Earlier we argued for more coverage, however nasty, of the situation. But at what point do the daily dispatches of narco ultraviolence become a smokescreen, merging into another, falling into tonal and structural formulas? How does it read back in the United States? If it's only flashes and pings of blood, fear, and a rudimentary name-dropping of the Santa Muerte, then we're obviously not getting the complete picture.

In fact, the press has lately been characterizing Mexico's narco violence as a kind of contagion "spilling over" the U.S.-Mexico border. This is the critique of a New York Times reader in North Carolina on a recent story on drug violence in Tucson, as pointed out by The Mex Files. Heather Williams in Durham makes some other pretty damning points:

Fact is, the drug trade is a transnational commodity chain that links
consumers [in] the U.S. with a pyramid of distributors, processors,
financiers, and growers. In that sense, the violence is a product of
the trade itself, not a disease vector from Mexico. Drug transshipment
is a 35 billion dollar a year business in Mexico, but it’s estimated to
be a 70 billion dollar a year retail industry here in the U.S. Do we
really think that all the people profiting from this trade are colorful
(and brown) cartel leaders walking around with Tec-9 pistols in their
coats? Give me a break. You can't move that kind of cash without
bankers, real estate agents, trucking firms, lawyers, bureaucrats,
cops, border patrol agents, etc. helping out at every stage of the game.

[...]

On this story, you've got a reporter here who's repeating some bloody
anecdotes but no universal statistics. Russia, for example, [has] a
violent crime rate 50 percent higher than Mexico, and their gangs are
unbelievably violent and yes, transnational (according to the FBI, a
Russian gang likely has access to your credit card number -- they have
most of the world’s numbers on file right now), but we don't have front
page news about Russian gangsters "spilling over" into Brooklyn and
Queens and slitting throats and cutting people up with chain saws
because that would get the NYT in trouble with some sensitive
constituencies, no?

You could also say the stories people like Williams are critiquing echo the hysteria over the "spilling over" of Mexicans back when. Or ... waaaaay back when. In "Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds," Gregory Rodriguez reminds us that internal Mexican struggles have long been depicted in the United States as contagious threats:

By the summer of 1915, the Plan de San Diego had become national news. "Mexican anarchy," wrote The Chicago Tribune, "now thrusts its red hand across our border and with an insane insolence attempts to visit upon American citizens in their homes the destruction it has wreaked upon American persons and property abroad."

Does this sound a little familiar? The comment above does not currently make the NYT's "editor's selections" of reaction to the Tucson story, but its readers recommend it. The whole thing is here.

Meanwhile: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is on a mission this week to mend fences with the Mexican political establishment, the investigative journal Proceso says [no direct link], citing sources in Washington. The magazine says Clinton's visit is part of an effort by the White House to take control of the message on the narco issue after a series of troubling hearings led by members of Congress.

Clinton visits President Felipe Calderon in Mexico City tomorrow and then checks out Monterrey on Thursday. You can bet that along the way she'll also be hearing plenty of complaining from Mexico's touchy elites.

23 March 2009

* Above, police and New Age pilgrims, Pyramid of the Sun, 21 March 2009.

The event is one of those social-spiritual rituals that Mexicans are so good at creating. As with others, there was a distinct element of fear and danger at Teotihuacan on Saturday. Hundreds of thousands if not a couple million visitors, most dressed in white to absorb the energia of the pyramids, converged on the ghost city in the northeast basin. Menacing federal police stood guarding the site just about everywhere.

We arrived just as they were closing access to the Pyramid of the Sun, which was probably a blessing; it looked like climbing the thing was an inch by inch waiting process that could last hours -- in the hot sun. We watched the contrived New Age poses and the aggressive souvenir vending with a measure of sadness.

20 March 2009

We tried to go see Cuban female rappers Las Krudas at the Ex-Teresa on Wednesday night, but Gustavo and I were stopped at the door. No men allowed. Even feminist men, which we proclaimed ourselves to be. Friends visiting from L.A., Nefertiti and Ana, are among the hundreds of women in town for the XI Encuentro Feminista de Latinoamérica y del Caribe, and three of us tried to tag along to the nighttime cultural activity. Nuria went in. The other male and I didn't.

Initially, we felt a bit discriminated against. We went and waited it out over Black Label and tortilla at the rooftop bar of the Centro Cultural España, while some jazz trio played. When we caught up with the women after they saw Las Krudas, they were glowing, ecstatic to have experienced the energy, the "freedom" of a rare women-only social space, even temporarily. "We're discriminated against every day," we were told. "Now you know what it feels like."

The Kumbia Queers performed for the conference attendees on Thursday night. Same set-up, I'm told, no men -- except for the custodial boys. Today there is a feminist marcha in the Centro, and on Saturday, the 4th Marcha Lésbica will take place from the Zócalo to the Monumento de la Revolución. "Only women, no buses, no political parties," the marcha's site says.

19 March 2009

Industrial, modern, forward-looking Monterrey in northern Mexico is Zetas territory. The L.A. Times's Tracy Wilkinson was recently there, reporting up close on the deep hold that the Gulf cartel's enforcement wing has on life in the city's roughest barrios.

You can get a first-person look at what that's like by checking out the work of Pancho Montana, the nom de plume of a guy who lives in Monterrey and has been writing these raw yet totally engrossing dispatches of the narco scene there for Exiled, an online magazine. From Montana's piece on the drug store (not drugstore) tienditas of his hood:

The inventory is simple, too. These aren’t boutique medical marijuana
shops I hear you have in California that offer 50 types of weed. No,
the main business of a tiendita is piedra, slang name for
crack cocaine. But after a drug shop becomes more established, the
management expands into powder cocaine and pot. The quality is not very
good. They cut it too much. That’s why a bolsita (baggie) of zetas pase (blow) is usually called rabia (rabies). Imagine why.

The magazine itself makes a pretty confrontational case against what it terms "boring progressives who cover the War on Drugs" as if they were doing a "freshmen Chemistry paper on hydrogen bonds." Read the whole entry on "Pro-drug Journalists" over there. It makes an analogy to closeted gays. Of course, there is and always will be a space for a general-audience, mainstream narrative for this kind of story (we hope), but ... thoughts?

18 March 2009

What's the one song you are bound to hear on the juke these days at any dance-friendly Mexico City cantina? It's probably "Por Ti," by La Apuesta, a banda made up of two brothers from the mountains of Oaxaca.

According to their MySpace fan page, La Apuesta toured all over the U.S. last year. Chances are, people are already holding each other tight on the dancefloor to this jam in countless cultural gathering points of the Mexican diaspora north of the border.

17 March 2009

Spring Break is upon us, and with it, fretting over whether Mexico's narco violence poses a danger to the throngs of U.S. vactioners who come south to swim, tan, and get faded. Will the drug war kill you if you hit Mexico's beaches this year? The short answer is no. The cartels are fighting themselves and the government. Narcos gain next to nothing with messing with this time-honored binational tradition. That's the deal, basically.

At the same time, the narco war poses a complicated and pressing international crisis that affects society on both sides of the border. We cannot ignore how serious the situation has become. Yet I've been reading on U.S.-Mexican ex-pat blogs and media circuits far too much dismissing, resentful commentary on supposed hysteria in the U.S. media on the drug war. Such reaction to the coverage is more or less Felipe Calderon's line right now. Consider that for a moment.

This kind of complaining is dangerous for everyone, at least if you believe in acknowledging reality. More comprehensive, probing, forthright coverage is needed, not less. If the story is ugly, it's ugly, and no amount of blind boosterism can change that.

16 March 2009

This is the backside of a physically overwhelming Aztec-made figure of Coatlicue, discovered in the subterranean rubble of postcolonial Mexico City. I saw it on Sunday at the Museo Nacional de Antropologia. This is the massive and sort of nationally
totemic house of pre-Hispanic history and artifacts at Chapultepec, one of those absolute must-sees for tourists, even those passing through in a day or so.

I hadn't been back in years. And I left feeling a little unconvinced. With this piece for instance, as breathtaking as it is, there is little accompanying information for it otherwise: no exact or estimated date for when it was made, no exact location of where it was found. Many of the pieces in the museum aren't even labeled. Throughout, no clear effort is made to distinguish between original artifacts, replicas (there are many in there), and contemporary artworks. It also appears ill-kept; there are unmarked parches holes throughout the space, indicating either working repairs, upgrades, or for all we know remnants of archeological theft.

Right now through the end of the month the museum is hosting some mega-exhibit on the riches of the Russian Czars. On Sunday lines were practically endless to buy tickets and to get inside. Admission and access are separate from the permanent exhibits. The INAH clearly has its priorities straight.

15 March 2009

"I am not proposing an interventionist state, but I am proposing a regulating state, vigilant, which allows for competition to exist in the country, which respects institutionality, which respects private property, and above all guarantees judicial security," the Salvadoran presidential candidate Mauricio Funes said last week, in an interview with DPA.

14 March 2009

However,
even among latter-generation Mexican Americans who are bilingual,
Spanish tends to serve more a colloquial than a formal function; used
more in private than in public. In other words, Spanish is generally
not the language in which they feel most comfortable conducting
business. Likewise, many business owners find the "kitchen Spanish" of
many latter-generation Latinos insufficient to "write a memo or close a
deal." For instance, in the creative departments of the
Spanish-language marketing industry, "demands for 'perfect language
skills,' bar most U.S.[-born Latinos]" from employment. Instead, the
industry is dominated by foreign-born Latin Americans, "who have
relocated to the United States as adults, often to pursue advanced
studies, or who have had previous experience in the advertising and
marketing industries" in their native countries. Likewise, since its
inception, Spanish-language television has either relied heavily on
imported programming from Latin America or drawn its talent from
"specific Latin American countries, where 'authentic' Spanish speakers
are often recruited to work in the United States." The same goes for
the staffs of Spanish-language newspapers.

A provocative and interesting point. Rodriguez's book is an overview of the history of mestizaje
and Mexican immigration to the north. He argues that, with rising
immigration from Mexico, historical Mexican concepts on race will permanently alter the black/white racial binary that has been so deeply embedded in the racial attitudes and assumptions of the United States.

13 March 2009

In Acapulco, which you might call the capital of afromestizo Mexico, the streets are run by tropical gangsters -- open, hospitable, on top of things, yet watching everything for any sign of trouble. Morenos in shorts and wifebeaters, their urban coastal slang is made almost incomprehensible inside the quick and drawn south Guerrero accent.

Once you get away from Acapulco's over-developed tourist zones, this is a brittle, dense, steamy city, very literally; buildings stew under the acidic strength of the hot salt-water breezes. There are knock-down cantinas on every other corner. In the narco era, the police and military make their presence felt. The hillside barrios, you are told, are absolutely off-limits.

We arrived Saturday night. Needed a break. One of those things. Mexico City was becoming intolerable (again), so in a moment's decision, we headed in silence to Tasqueña and got on the first possible bus to the south. By Sunday afternoon we were relaxing by the pool at Villa Roxana, half-hour north of Acapulco on the beach in Pie de la Cuesta.

A planned two-day retreat turned into three, then four ... then five. I had stayed at this spot once almost four years ago, and was so glad to have stumbled upon it again. For around $400 pesos a night, the rooms and service are unmatched. Roxana, the owner, is a thoughtful, attentive host. Be cool and considerate, and she'll take care of you.

06 March 2009

This is the legendary, bring-down-the-house, swooning-in-the-audience, teary-eyed performance of "El Triste" by then-21-year-old crooner José José, at a 1970 Latin American singing competition, in Mexico City. The hosting contestant came in a scandalous third place. Nonetheless, the event launched a mega-star career.

05 March 2009

The artist Betsabeé Romero has a few pieces on view right now at the Atrio de San Francisco, the tiny outdoor arts space in the shadow of downtown's Torre Latinoamericana. Romero's work focuses on automobiles -- specifically, the iconic bocho -- and how as objects and commodities, cars reflect fissures and contradictions in industrialization, nationalism, globalization, and consumerism.

They are fascinating, satisfying art pieces in any setting. But this small exhibit immediately brought to mind a much more comprehensive sampling of Romero's work that was recently on view at the Museo Amparo in Puebla, which we visited over Christmas. The show, "Lágrimas Negras," or "Black Tears," was a total knock-out.

I've missed a few major-headline solo exhibitions in Mexico the past few years, granted, but I don't think in all my time here I've seen a single artist's vision presented with such clarity, focus, and resolution as that of Romero's show at the Amparo.

For starters, there was so much to look at -- more than 100 works in all. Every room brought new but consistent surprises. This piece for example consisted of chicle pressed into Mesoamerican-style contour cuts in used strips of tire rubber. This piece applied the same gesture -- engraving tires -- to leave indigenous motif patterns on a field of loose sugar. See more here. I remember leaving "Lágrimas Negras" thinking that I've been in contact with very few artists whose
work manages to successfully navigate materials, technique, local
histories, the global contemporary, and pure whimsy to such original
effect as Betsabeé Romero.

In Mexico City she is represented by Galeria Refaccionaria, and in New York by Galeria Ramis Barquet. Watch her talk about her work here. Let's hope a show of equal or greater ambition as Romero's recent display in Puebla is some day brought to the D.F.

04 March 2009

With this advertisement on the back panel of the current issue of the beloved indie avant-garde homo sheet BUTT. The rest of the text reads:

An up-and-coming Mexico city-based fashion designer, Quetzal was known as much for his one-of-a-kind sense of style as he was for his mesmerizing persona. Photographed here on Calle Reforma [sic] in Mexico City, doing what he did best -- just being himself. We know that he would have loved to be in BUTT magazine. He will be well-remembered.

Recent coverage of Quetzal's passing in local media: In issue 2 of Revista 192, friends of Quetzal, including Marvin Duran, Ana Karla Escobar, Carlos Temores, and Sheily Jimenez, wrote personal memorials to Quetzi. Also, in December the magazine Chilango published a rather salacious piece detailing Quetzal's death and drinking problems.

03 March 2009

What if the Valley of Mexico was still dominated by water? What if the conquistadors had not emptied the Lago de Texcoco? What if, instead of Periféricos and Viaductos, waterways still provided Mexico City's primary arteries for transport? Would it look anything like the few canals that are left today in Xochimilco? You lean back on the lip of your trajinera, drinking and enjoying the company of family, and closing your eyes, you conjure a Tenochtitlán you never saw.

What would it look like today?

In a certain future, I picture chinampas growing on rooftops. Maize, legumes, herbs, succulents, feeding us from hanging gardens. I picture fresh water flowing again from the old aqueduct. I picture clear vistas every single day, as far away as the volcanoes. I picture cruising home on Eje Central not in a bus or bocho, but on a water-taxi.

Can they win? he asks her. "I don't think so," the Queen responds. "You'd have to wipe out the government to wipe out drug trafficking."
Watch the exchange here.

With this piece and many others filtering through since last week, it was as if the United States suddenly sat up and realized there was a problem brewing south of the border.
Janet Napolitano, the new Homeland Security Secretary, sounded the alarm before a committee in Congress. And the Justice Department announced more than 700 arrests across the U.S. in a crackdown on the Sinaloa cartel. New U.S. attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr. used his first press conference to issue an open warning to Mexican cartels operating distribution cells within the country, but it sounded a bit hollow; how long have the cartels been building networks of distributors in the U.S.? Two decades, at least? Three?

Check out this L.A. Times Flash map to see just how deeply a part of the criminal landscape Mexican druglords are in gringolandia. And we're only talking about this now?

Could it be that a more general fear factor is taking hold? One U.S. poll suggests so. Last week The Wall Street Journal appeared eager to fan the flames, directly comparing Mexico's battle against the cartels with Pakistan's battle against Islamic radicals. The rest of the piece takes us through Monterrey, detailing the Zetas' hold on the streets, but as a work of journalism it read as overtly hysterical. (Let me know where this place known as "Tepitoto" is located, if you find it.)

What's needed is a far more honest discussion on the United States's several points of responsibility for what is happening in Mexico. The U.S. is the biggest narcotics market in the world. A large majority of the weapons and cash that fuel the war come from the north to the south.

President Felipe Calderon meanwhile will to continue to insist that Mexico is not a failed state. But all signs right now point to the country's vast state of failure. Maybe we should start listening to former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo and his friends on this one. As an Intersections reader pointed out, things are so hairy in Ciudad Juarez that its mayor is hiding out across the river in El Paso -- and is considered in danger even there.

01 March 2009

And for the main event, we watched Mistico and Marco Corleone fight valiantly but fall in the end to Atlantis and his crew of rudos, Friday night at the big and sleek Arena Mexico, the biggest lucha libre venue in the city. The other highlight of the night? Enjoying the antics of decidedly effete Maximo, the crowd-pleasing "exotic" wrestler who sometimes throws his opponents off with an aggressive wet kiss.

Going to the luchas in D.F. brought back memories. As kitschy-trendy as lucha libre has gotten on an international level, it remains at its core an affordable family entertainment for Mexicans up and down the country and across generations. We used to go to the luchas in Tijuana when we were little. I remember the piles of little plastic luchadores we'd collect, and the miniature wooden rings that came with them, and the excitement inside and outside the arena on Friday nights ... and the wrestler's moves that we'd try inevitably to recreate at home.

* The CMLL is lucha libre's corporate professional parent. Read more about its history here.